Pages

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Historical ideologues in the new era

The other day I was asked a question on twitter which for the life of me I could not fit an answer in to 140 characters. The question was in relation to the current and coming unrest.

Time waits for no one. But what will come first? True reform and return to democracy or Fascism?

Fascism already won. We've been living under fascist policies for decades. These policies however mostly thrust first world repression on to the third world. I don't really like the term fascist to describe this system though, as it really is beyond fascism. It's feudalism and it's global.

I don't like fascism because governments are not "merging" with corporations, they are being usurped by them. Take for instance, the infamous "credit ratings" which with European turmoil are becoming mainstream news. Why is a country's "credit rating" important? It determines how much it is going to cost them to borrow money (from the private banks) just as your own credit rating determines the availability of loans for your household. There is a large difference between a household's credit rating and a country's credit rating however, that difference is that your own credit rating is largely determined by your credit upkeep and payment history where as a country's credit rating more depends on the rating agency's perception of their ability to pay back a debt. It's forward looking, instead of historical.

In practice, credit ratings play out like this: Country X has a number of sweeping social policies they would like to pass. The IMF and global monetary powers don't like these policies, so they issue a bunch of "warnings". Credit rating agencies who work for the ratees pick up on these warnings and using the same economic lens as the IMF determine that perhaps these social policies will inhibit that country's ability to service it's debt (again, a debt which is privately brokered). If the country doesn't listen to the "warnings" and reverse course on their policies, downgrades will be issued and the country's borrowing costs will go up. Thus making it more expensive to implement those policies. If the unfavorable policies wouldn't have inhibited the private debt payment scheme before the downgrade, it certainly will after and thus the "warnings" and "downgrades" always prove to be true. It is through this mechanism that real policy is voted up or down, politicians simply implement policies that have been approved by the global banking system by anonymous, unelected, credit raters.

On the other side of this coin you have the lobby groups. Simply having a lobby isn't enough to peddle policy in your favor, your lobby's policies must have the go-ahead by the rating agencies too.

The complete circle works like this: corporate round tables fund lobbies which propose policies which are then backed by the rating agencies these round-table groups fund as well. Ever wonder why congress or parliament so rarely seem to know whats in a bill? Ever wonder how they can pass something without reading it? They can pass it because the rating system gives it the A'Ok, it's certified therefore who cares about the contents? Politicians are not there to make decisions on policies, they are there to implement the policies.

Does this sound like democracy to you?

"So where is the iron fist of fascism?" you might be asking. It was at the G20 in Toronto, it's in the U.S., it's in Spain, it's in Italy, it's now even Quebec.

The iron fist of fascism (Source: static.guim.co.uk)

For the last decade, slowly but surely the iron fist has been creeping up on us. It's appearing and noticeable now because it is only now that the fascist policies are being questioned. It is the implosion of the corrupt fascist system which has gotten people thinking "wait a minute here...".

It is the fascist policies which make the third world, third world. Do you think those people are like that simply because they can't manage to get a society together? No, those nations are kept in disarray by us so that our corporations can go in and take ownership of the resources there in exchange for IMF "loans". It is this imperialism (among with many other things such as currency devaluation) which has allowed the appearance of "economic growth" to continue. Real economic growth collapsed in the late 70s, the "Reagan Revolution" was the illusion of economic growth, and now that this illusion is collapsing countries appear to be clueless in their attempts to "restore growth". Even if we did restore growth however, there isn't enough resources left in the earth to grow ourselves out of this massive debt, service the interest, and pay future costs of maintenance and growth. The fascist illusion is collapsing, so this isn't the beginning of fascism, it's the end of the western fascist era. What comes next? Full out dictatorship.

Of course we won't be calling it a dictatorship, because in the west we "oppose dictatorships". Instead we have a fancier term for dictators: technocrats. Just as we didn't call our era of fascism, we called it "democracy".

Our idea of democracy is founded on two "ideologies": left and right. Neither however propose real changes to the system, both instead offer different ways that we can accomplish whatever within the system. Both within the U.S. and Canada, neither left or right challenges the fundamentals of globalization or our monetary system. Try proposing that the Bank of Canada meet it's charter obligations and be the sole issuer of currency to a politician and you will either be laughed at, ignored, or get a confused look as though they had never thought of that before. Neither the left, nor the right has any interest in fundamentally addressing the systemic problems and to be honest few people do as well.

To answer the twitter question: neither comes first. Democracy died long ago, fascism is dying now, what happens next is up to the people. Peaceful revolutions, violent revolutions, or worse. The result of this global economic implosion will play out differently in different places depending on the people's grasp of the situation. In the latest election Greece elected a number of neo-nazi's for instance. It's during these time of global economic turmoil and global power struggles where the "extremists" tend to come to power. A large number of the public is completely uninformed as to the nature of the global economic problem, it's this unawareness which allows leaders like Hitler to come to power on the promises of economic prosperity and a scapegoat enemy. I fear in 10 years time we will not recognize most of the western nations we thought as "democratic and free", what they will resemble though is anyone's guess.

Click here to recommend this post on progressivebloggers.ca and help other people find this information.

Richard Fantin is a self-taught software developer who has mostly throughout his career focused on financial applications and high frequency trading. He currently works for eQube gaming systems.

Nazayh Zanidean is a Project Coordinator for a mid-sized construction contractor in Calgary, Alberta. He enjoys writing as a hobby on topics that include foreign policy, international human rights, security and systemic media bias.